


Of Ugly Sweaters and Mistletoes

by Penguin_Massacre



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Secret Santa, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21710770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penguin_Massacre/pseuds/Penguin_Massacre
Summary: Morgana rigs the secret Santa. Not for her own gain, mind you. She is simply being the best sister ever.
Relationships: Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Morgana (Merlin)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 71
Collections: Merlin Holidays 2019





	Of Ugly Sweaters and Mistletoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AJsRandom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJsRandom/gifts).



> This is my gift for AJsRandom, I hope you like what I did with your prompt! Merry Christmas!!
> 
> (English is not my first language and sadly I don't have a beta reader so please excue any errors)

“Morgana I need you to rig the secret santa for me today,” Arthur nearly yelled as he busted through her front door, dragging a mix of snow and mud through her foyer.  
“Hello to you too. Thank you so much for knocking first and not dirtying up my entrance which I just cleaned two hours ago.”  
Her reply had Arthur stop in his tracks, look down and then sheepishly apologize and take off his shoes. Morgana shook her head. Sometimes she couldn’t believe that they were actually related. Sometimes Arthur just forgot about every single one of his manners and ended up being a huge annoyance. But still, he was her beloved brother and he seemed rather wired up.

“Tell me, why do you need me to rig the secret santa?” she asked as she pushed some cleaning utensils into his hands so he could clean up his mess.  
“You see, I have this perfect gift for Gwen,” he started as he got down to work.  
“And you can’t gift it to her on christmas because?”  
“Because I already have all her christmas presents and she asked me not to go overboard. So I need this second chance to give her another gift.”  
Morgana put her hand to her forehead.  
“Let me get this straight, you bought too many presents for your girlfriend, as you do every year may I add, even when she asked you to pace yourself and now you’re trying to cheat the system? Why don’t you just stay true to what you agreed upon? You know Gwen feels bad she can’t buy you as many gifts as you can,” Morgana asked as she leant against the wall with her arms crossed in front of her chest.  
“I know! And I really try to buy not as many gifts! But every time I see something I know she would like I want to buy it because I can already imagine her smile. Her happiness is the best gift she can give me,” Arthur confessed with a small, dopey smile on his face.  
“You are a fool,” Morgana said, shaking her head, but there was a smile on her face.  
“A fool in love. You can’t fault me when her laughter is the most beautiful sound on this earth.”  
“Ugh, please, I’ll help me if you stop talking. All this sugar will make my floor sticky.”  
Arthur laughed at that. “Thanks, I knew I could count on you! Best sister ever!”  
“Yeah, yeah. Finish cleaning, then we’ll talk some more about this,” Morgana said and then turned around to go to her living room to start scheming.

Her plan was foolproof. Since it was her idea to have a secret santa she could convince everyone that she could give out the little sheets of paper with the names on them. She had marked Gwen’s beforehand so she could distinguish it from the others and hand it to Arthur easily. He was also the first in line to receive his name because she knew that she couldn’t keep Gwaine from taking a name out of the hat himself. The other sheets were unmarked, she didn’t want to rig the entire thing. This was just a little service to her brother (and her best friend because in the end Arthur gave the best gifts when it came to Gwen). It didn’t matter to her who she got as well. Her gift was already decided, regardless of who her giftee was. A really ugly christmas sweater was always a good idea.

When she was done handing out everyone’s names she sat down on the armchair, then she took the last paper out of the hat and unfolded it. ‘Merlin’ it read and Morgana smiled.

“So, now that everyone has their name can we finally eat the pizza?” Gwaine asked and rubbed his stomach to signify just how hungry he was.  
“This literally took 5 minutes,” Percival laughed and lightly shoved him, which had Gwaine nearly falling from the couch. Sometimes he didn’t knew his own strength and it was hilarious.Gwaine acted as if he was pouting but everyone knew that he wasn’t.  
“Yeah and those were 5 minutes too long! I bet the pizza is all cold now,” he fake whined and then grabbed the carton closest to him, trying to claim it as his own without even knowing what was inside. After that it was chaos. Everyone tried to get the pizza they wanted. Everyone except Morgana who leaned back. No one liked spinach on their pizza but her so she was safe. In her head she was going over the different ugly christmas sweater designs she had looked up some days ago and tried to imagine them on Merlin. He would probably look good in them no matter how ridiculous the motive. But there had been this one sweater with a dragon on it…

The weeks going up to their christmas party went by fast. Morgana had been on and off decorating her flat until she was finally satisfied with the outcome. As the party was at her place she wanted to be the best host possible. The year before had been at Gwaine’s and he only had put up a subpar mini christmas tree. Morgana had sworn then that she would do better. And she did. She had put up christmas lights all over the flat, her christmas tree reached up to the ceiling and she had even hang mistletoe above all of her doorways. She was already planning to trap Arthur and Gwen beneath then. As much as she complained about them being all lovey dovey, she really liked seeing the both of them so happy. It made her happy too (and maybe a little envious).

A 30 minutes before everyone was said to arrive Morgana once again wondered who had pulled her name and what they might’ve gotten her. Her present for Merlin sat neatly wrapped beneath the christmas tree. She couldn’t wait for everyone’s reaction. Maybe Merlin would even humor them and put it on for a few minutes. She really needed to get a picture of it then.

As the face of punctuality, Leon arrived first and right on time, but they didn’t have to wait long for the others. Even Gwaine was punctual, which might be attributed to the fact that, as it was her party, Morgana was cooking and everyone knew what she was capable of in the kitchen. Everyone put their secret santa gifts next to Morgana’s beneath the christmas tree before they headed to the dinner table where the food was already waiting. It was evident that everyone was very excited about the gifts they were about to receive, but they still took their time to savour the delicious meal Morgana spent the whole day preparing. If they didn’t Morgana would’ve had a very stern talk with them, knife in hand obviously.

When the food was devoured and even the dessert completely gone, Merlin and Gwen helped Morgana with the cleanup while the others sat up the gift exchange area.  
“You really outdid yourself this year,” Merlin told her as he cleaned the plates and then handed them over to Gwen so she could dry them.  
“You really did,” Gwen agreed, “The food was amazing and you put so much work into the decoration as well!”  
She sounded so excited and Morgana loved it.  
“You were so sad about the lack of decoration last year I couldn’t do that to my best friend again,” Morgana said with with a smile on her face and then shoved her a little with a nudge of her hips. “Come on hurry up before they open all the presents without us!”  
Merlin laughed. “Leon and Percy will make sure that Gwaine and Arthur keep their grabby hands off of the presents,” he said and handed the last plate to Gwen to dry it before the three of them went back to the living room.

Leon, Percival, Arthur and Gwaine were gathered around the TV table on which all the presents were gathered in a huge pile. Gwen sat down in the space next to Arthur, snuggling into his side, which left Morgana and Merlin sitting next to each other at the other end of the couch. The moment everyone was finally sat in their seats Gwaine clapped his hands loudly and exclaimed “Present time!” before he started distributing everyone’s respective present quickly. Morgana ended up with a decently sized and hard present but she didn’t start unwrapping it instantly because she wanted to see Merlin’s reaction to the sweater and with him sitting right next to her she had the perfect view. Merlin began unpeeling the wrapping carefully. He was really slow. So slow, that in the meantime Gwen had already unwrapped her present and when she saw the pendant Arthur had gotten her, she had only exclaimed “Oh my god Arthur!” before throwing herself into his arms. Morgana only witnessed the latter part with her eyes as she didn’t want to miss Merlin’s reaction but the huge smile she saw on Gwen’s face as she hugged Arthur furiously told her once again that she did the right thing when she agreed to rig the secret santa in Arthur’s favor.

Finally after what seemed like hours Merlin had unwrapped his present and was looking at the sweater with an amused expression. Then he turned and looked at Morgana with the brightest smile on his face. Her heart may or may not had skipped a beat.  
“I’ve always wanted one of those! And it even has a dragon on it!” he exclaimed and immediately pulled it over his head to put it on. Not exactly the reaction Morgana had expected. The amusement she did, but the genuine excitement? It was cute, honestly. Especially the way he was looking at her with his hair sticking in every direction. She swallowed.  
“I’m glad that you like it,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice steady.  
“I do. Now please, open your own present. I want to know what you think.”  
“So I take this is from you? You’re not a very secret secret santa Merlin,” she said laughing lightly as she started peeling at the wrapping.  
“You would’ve found out sooner or later so there is no need in keeping it secret any longer. In fact I’m a bit surprised you didn’t already know.”  
“Yeah this year I really tried my best to ‘not ruin the fun in having a secret santa’ as Arthur called it last year.”  
Merlin leaned closer.  
“So this year you only rigged it?” he said in a lowered voice. Morgana was stunned for a second.  
“You knew?”  
“Yeah but I don’t think anyone else realized and I won’t tell them. I know you did it so Arthur could give Gwen one more gift,” then he laughed, “Now come on, open your present! Everyone is already done.”

So Morgana did and what she found completely stunned her. In her hands she held an old book. The cover didn’t say anything and so did the back, but when she flipped through it she could see it filled with recipes for tinctures, runes, information about different stones and plants and other witches stuff. A true goldmine. She had wanted something like this in forever. She was even tearing up a little as she gently hugged the book to her chest.

“Do you like it?” Merlin asked when Morgana didn’t say anything. “I found it in an antique shop by chance and thought that it might be of interest for you,” he said scratching his head lightly.  
Morgana rested her head on his shoulder. Whyever it made him sit straighter and a bit stiffly.  
“Thank you, Merlin. I love it.”  
“That’s good,” he lightly croaked out and then when Morgana didn’t show a sign of moving her head any time soon as she flipped through the pages of the book he put his head on hers. They stayed like that for some time.

Later when the alcohol had been brought out and everyone was at least a bit drunk Morgana stood in her doorframe overlooking her party guests. Gwen and Arthur had started blatantly flirting with each other about half an hour ago and had been lost in their own world since then. Elian, Percival, Gwaine and Leon were playing some game of dice and it was very obvious that Gwaine was somehow cheating, the other men weren’t able to catch him in the act, though, so they just ended up yelling over each other when he won again. Leon tried his best to calm down but it was obvious a lost cause. Before Morgana could wonder where Merlin was he appeared next to her with a bottle of beer in his hand. He was still wearing the sweater Morgana had gifted him. This man truly was ridiculous. Merlin noticed her gaze.

“Are you looking at this amazing sweater of mine? I’m sure you are very jealous right now and want to get your own.”  
Morgana snorted. “You bet.” She was quiet for a bit. “Actually I got this as a prank gift. I didn’t expect you to like the sweater as much and now I feel a bit bad because your gift was so thoughtful and sincere,” she mused aloud and then looked at Merlin.  
“I really do like it a lot. I didn’t lie when I said I wanted to get one of those for a long time,” he trailed off and it seemed like he was contemplating a thought for a second. “But you know what? If you feel so bad I have the perfect Idea how you can make it up to me.”  
“Please enlighten me o wise one,” Morgana grinned and turned her body, now fully facing Merlin. In that moment she realized just how close he stood next to her and just how tall he was. It was nice. She wouldn’t mind having him even closer. Before she could get any further in her train of thoughts Merlin’s voice pulled her back to reality.  
“Go on a date with me.”

Morgana was stunned. Did she hear that right? But when she looked in his face the look on it was nervous and his eyes were sincere. She made up her mind. She would really like to go on that date with Merlin. Her silence worried Merlin. He wondered if he had overstepped with his question. But before he could apologize and tell her to just forget it Morgana pulled him down into a kiss. It wasn’t particularly long or deep, but when they parted Merlin came out of it flushed and dazed.  
“What was that for?” he asked slightly out of breath. Morgana liked what an effect she had on him with just this little gesture.  
“Look up. We’re standing beneath a mistletoe,” she pressed another quick kiss to his lips, “And as an answer to your question. Yes, I’ll go on that date with you.”  
And with those words she went back into the living room, leaving behind a bright red but very happy Merlin.

**Author's Note:**

> Once again I hope you liked my spin on your prompt! This is my first time writing Morgana I hope I did her justice.


End file.
